In-Service Training

background from the partners of these countries. So it might be needed to adjust parts of the training material to the regional or national frame conditions, especially when legal information has been provided. A third aspect to be considered relates to the currency of the material: Online Social Entrepreneurship is a phenomenon which has recently evolved as an online trend and which is developing and changing with the quick constant development of online and social media. Online platforms are quickly developing, online trends are short-lived and the trends in Online Social Entrepreneurship are following these quick changes. This means that also the information provided in the modules or the links to reference information or AV resources in the modules can be subject to change. So even though the training materials have been developed with care, some aspects of the provided training material might need to be updated to reflect the latest state of the development or might need to be extended (e.g. new online platforms or services). It is therefore advisable to check if the information provided in a module needs to be adapted or updated or if all links provided in the self-directed resources or tutor manuals are still accessible for the learners.

Introduction

The aim of this in-service training programme is to set the youth professionals in state to deliver the Online Social Entrepreneurship Curriculum and the Digital & Social Media Curriculum to the target group of youth living with a disability or a long-term health condition.

As a first step the youth professionals need to develop an understanding for the importance and relevance of the topics for the target group as a basis for familiarising with the developed teaching and learning material.

Up to now social influencers are not a very common phenomenon, so for many the concept of influencers is not connected to the idea of fostering inclusion, diversity and social impact. Instead, for many the influencership stands for an online trend which is rather connected to superficial entertainment or commercial intentions, forgetting that the principle of reaching big groups of people via social media could be used also in other contexts and possibly result in an unexpectedly big audience for social topics like diversity and inclusion.

https://www.youtube.com/user/theannieelainey

As a consequence many youth professionals will not be aware of the big potential and the high attractiveness of influencers for “serious” social topics, and thus might also not be aware of the high potential of the influencers concept as a multiplication factor for social topics. Many youth professionals might not even have personally experienced the attractiveness of the influencers concept in other contexts yet. So to be able to support youth with a disability or a long-term health conditions in the first steps of their career is essential to inspire youth workers to develop a first understanding of the high potential of Online Social Entrepreneurship and to let them experience the attractiveness of this way of direct and non-hierarchical communication. Parallel to developing an understanding of the benefits of this concept and its possible high reach in the online community it is needed to develop an understanding that the use of online and social media can also be connected to a number of unwanted effects.

This means the youth workers need to be made aware of the most common

online threats and how to safe-guard against them. Only then can they competently support the target group in developing a safe and responsible use of online and social media as a basis for their career as Online Social Entrepreneurs (social influencers). So the in-service training programme makes the youth professionals aware of the high potential of the concept of Online Social Entrepreneurship for fostering inclusion and diversity (and social impact) and needs to make the youth professionals aware of the necessity to develop digital & social media literacy when working online. The use of social and online media offers lots of benefits for the social entrepreneur, but at the same time requires knowledge and competences on technical, social and legal aspects to avoid risks associated with the use of online media. Especially for Online Social Entrepreneurs, the responsible and competent use of online and social media is an essential part of their professional activity and needs to be trained from the beginning of their career. The youth workers, being not necessarily used to working with dynamic online environments and social media on an everyday basis, are introduced to the most common online and social media platforms and their targeted use when building up an audience and creating awareness for an Online Social Enterprise. With this basic orientation as a first step they can support the target group during their online activities while developing their Online Social Enterprise and can develop their digital skills to implement new digital possibilities in their provision of youth services also beyond the target group of youth living with a disability or a longterm health condition. For the youth professionals the integration of new sources

and platforms into the educational environment is expanding their possibilities for providing services for the youth.

With this understanding of the big potential of the concept of influencers and the necessity to develop digital and media literacy the content of all modules is introduced, also being supported and visualised with the summaries of the developed video lectures on each of the modules and units. Furthermore, a first orientation on the available learning and teaching material is given. During the extended phase of selfdirected learning, the youth professionals have the opportunity to familiarise themselves with the available material and to deepen their understanding with help of

reference media and self-directed resources as a part of lecture and workshop plans. The in-service training contains 25 hours of face-to-face training and 25 hours of selfdirected learning for the youth professionals. Both curricula provide thematic introductions to the topics of the modules, step-bystep instructions for lectures and workshops, reference sources and self-directed materials. For introducing the module and unit topics to the learners, each of the 16 modules of the curricula contains 2 short video lectures summarising the most important information. Further information on the module topics is available in the form of lecture slides in the Online Social Entrepreneurship Curriculum or as a part of the detailed workshop descriptions in the tutor handbook in the Digital & Social Media Literacy Curriculum. Both curricula offer additional self-learning resources and reference media for further work on the suggested topics. The in-service training programme is based on the modularised organisation of the curricula. The curricula are flexible resources, meaning that it is not fixed how a module or a certain selected topic is implemented. This is depending on the context and the knowledge level of the learners and their available learning time. This means

the workshops, the indicated timing or reference resources for self-directed learning should be understood as suggestions for the tutor and might need to

be adjusted to the actual needs of the learners or the available time. This adaptation of training content to the needs of the learners is an important factor for the success of the training programme. Also, the suitable methodic-didactic approach depends on the needs of the learners. For the learners, each curriculum is described in 24 hours of face-to-face learning and 40 hours of self-directed learning time.

Supporting the target group

The curricula and the learning resources are developed for the target group of youth living with a disability or a long-term health condition with the aim to prepare them in a structured way for starting careers as Online Social Entrepreneurs as in the field of business development and the safe and targeted use of online and social media. To be able to support the young starting entrepreneurs also the youth professionals as key intermediaries need to develop, expand and update their understanding of working in online surroundings with online platforms, including direct contact with users and an aspect of working in (online) public sphere. So the youth professionals,

next to being able to work technically with online media, need to develop a

sensitivity for the work in online surroundings and its possible positive and

negative “side effects”, such as the most common online threats and the relevance of media and online literacy. The young target group, being interested in starting a career in the sphere of online media, will be equipped with more advanced and more current digital skills in many fields of online working in comparison to the youth professionals. To be able to support the target group in a competent way, the youth professionals need to build up basic competences in online, media and social media literacy as well. Online and social media are rapidly advancing and constantly changing so that during everyday work it is often difficult or impossible to keep up with the latest developments and online trends for youth professionals, next to their work of providing services to the youth. This means many youth professionals are in need to update their often limited and basic knowledge of online and social media use and to expand their digital skills and competences. The provided resources developed in the Influencers project are – even though being developed for the youth with a disability and a chronic health condition – also offering the possibility for youth professionals to update on online learning and the use of social media and to extend their knowledge on current online tools and platforms.

This means the youth professionals can benefit from the developed modules of the project in two ways: While being able to keep up with the digital competences of the young and online affine target group in order to support them to start their careers in online environments in a protected and well-informed way, the youth professionals can benefit from the suggested tools, resources and information for their everyday work for the general provision of youth services to several target groups. Especially being informed about the most important online threads and being sensitized for possible consequences of acting publicly in online environments is essential for all areas of online engagement and has elevated importance when encouraging youth to make use of online and social media. A high awareness of digital possibilities and a more up-to-date and more competent use of online platforms, tools and environments can boost the efficiency of work of a youth worker in many ways.

So it is suggested to youth workers to see the developed materials and resources also as a possibility for them to enlarge and update their digital skills in order to make use of a bigger share of the benefits and possibilities of digital

media and to enlarge their competence on media and information literacy to be able to build up their own open and critical perspective on the use of social and online media, for themselves and for their work with Online Social Entrepreneurs and other groups of youth.

During the in-service training the youth professionals get an introduction on the topics of all curricula modules and their scope, potential and relevance and they

are informed about the developed materials and how to access them. The resources offer the possibility to extend on all topics by accessing the self-directed resources or the suggested AV reference media in the lesson plans and workshop descriptions. The Online Social Entrepreneurship Curriculum offers extensive thematic lecture slides on each module and unit as a part of the lesson plan. The tutor manuals in the Digital & Social Media Literacy Curriculum contains detailed workshop descriptions with references to AV media sources. Additionally 32 video lectures are available introducing and summarising the most important topics of the curricula. So by help of the developed materials the youth professionals can inform on the key question of the most important online threats in the Digital & Social Media Literacy Curriculum, big potential of online and social media as inclusion mechanism and multiplicators for online and social entrepreneurs in the Online Social Entrepreneurship Curriculum and consult both curricula for informing on the effective and up-to-date use of online tools and platforms.

During the subsequent self-directed learning phase of 25 hours the thematic content of the modules is deepened on an individual basis, the participants can become familiar with provided learning resources, teaching materials and suggested reference materials. This period of self-directed learning offers the opportunity for the participants to individually focus on specific topics of the training programme according to their learning needs and their expected way of working with the modules of the learning programme, reflecting e.g. the groups of participants in their organisations.

Having followed the in-service training programme the youth workers are equipped to deliver the two curricula to the target group of youth living with a disability or a chronic health condition. Youth workers have been informed about the topics of the modules and their relevance and introduced to the developed learning materials and the way of accessing the material via the e-learning platform. The youth professionals have been familiarized with the available material and the provided reference media and have had the opportunity to exchange with other youth experts on aspects of Online Social Entrepreneurship and online and social media literacy. After completing the in-service training event the youth professionals are able to transfer the training content into their institutions and should be able to distribute the

knowledge gained during the training in their home country following the cascading training model.

Structure and intended use of the in-service training for youth professionals

In the project a transnational training activity has been developed to put youth professionals into position to train colleagues within their organisations to deliver the curricula and to work comfortably with the developed material. This training consists of 25 hours of face-to-face training, followed by 25 hours of selfdirected training. The concept, thematic scope and significance of the training programme are introduced during a 4 hours preparatory training session preceding the training days. The content of the curricula and the variety of the developed materials are presented during 21 hours of face-to-face training. The suggested training consists of three days of training (7 hours per day). The content of the training is presented in 6 training activity blocks.

The training activities have a length of 1 hour per included module. Thus a training activity of three modules has a duration of 3 hours, a training activity comprising two modules has a duration of 2 hours.